There is no love for the United Nations in Kosovo.
Kosovo is the fourth country I've visited where the UN has or has had a key role, and in only one of them – Lebanon – is the UN not despised by just about everyone. In Lebanon the UN has so little power to make a difference one way or the other that any anger at the institution would largely be pointless. In Bosnia, though, UN “peacekeepers” stood by impotently while genocide and ethnic-cleansing campaigns were carried out right in front of them. The UN's Oil for Food program was thoroughly corrupted by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq at the expense of just about everybody who lives there. Kosovo, meanwhile, declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008, but the elected government is still subordinate to the almost universally despised UN bureaucrats who are the real power. Many Kosovars insist the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is actually a dictatorship.
Vetevendosje – “self-determination” in Albanian – was formed as a non-violent civil resistance movement against UN rule in a country that is supposed to be sovereign. Recently the European Union, which announced its own mission in Kosovo without being invited, was added to the list of opponents, but the UN remains the primary target. I attended one of Vetevendosje's rallies as an observer which began as a long march through the streets of Kosovo's capital Prishtina and ended at the United Nations headquarters where activists dumped a truckload of garbage inside the gate and hosed down the walls of the compound with sewage.
Read the rest at MichaelTotten.com
This may be a record fold even for the spineless Kofi Annan. According to news reports, including a lengthy video of Annan speaking, he has capitulated to Syrian strongman Bashar Assad's barely-week-old demand that UN troops not be stationed along the Syrian-Lebanon border. I predicted at the time that the UN would cave. Sometimes it's distressing to be right.
Details:UN chief Kofi Annan said Friday Damascus would enforce an arms embargo on Hizbullah in accordance with a UN resolution that halted Israel's war with the Lebanese group. Speaking to reporters after a meeting with the Syrian President in the Ash-Shaab Presidential Palace in Damascus, Annan said Bashar Assad had promised him he would halt all weapons to the Lebanese resistance group under UNSC 1701.
Syria also promised to boost the number of it own guards along the Lebanese-Syrian border, and establish joint patrols with the Lebanese Army "where possible," Annan said.
"While stating Syrian objections to the presence of foreign forces along the Syrian-Lebanese border , the [Syrian] president committed to me that Syria shall take all necessary measures to implement in full paragraph 15 of Resolution 1701 [which] deals with the arms embargo and rearmament" of Hizbullah, Annan said.
Is it any wonder that practically no Israeli of any political stripe has the slightest trust in Kofi Annan? By assigning Syria the responsibility to enforce the arms embargo against Hezbollah, Annan has truly put a ravenous fox in charge of guarding the henhouse. It's not credible that Annan doesn't know that Syria was the principal supplier of weapons to Hezbollah.
A more craven, unsavory character to head the UN can hardly be imagined. He has done more to destroy the UN's credibility (when it's had precious little to spare) than anyone else in the whole, wide world.
Anyone remember that Winds post re: "The Toyota Taliban"? Not to mention "Apocalypso" about Haiti's situation and the difference between work that made a difference and activity to suck up foreign money? Well, here's Sen. Sam Brownback [R-KS], on the Toyota Taliban at work:
"Many have stated to me, and they know it in this country, we have given millions, if not billions, for years in aid to Africa and people are worse off today than they were when we started. What went wrong? Certainly some of the money went into dictators' pockets, but also much of it was wasted on conferences and consultants, telling people what to do, rather than giving them the tools to do it with.
Let me give you an example, malaria. We spent over 90% of our money budgeted for malaria on consultants. Now, the African leaders I talked to tell me that they know what to do about malaria, they don't have the money to do it. Indeed, it's the old adage, you can teach a man to fish, but if he has no fishing pole he isn't going to catch many. We must change this by getting medicines and food and water-drilling equipment, and African trained doctors and teachers to Africa, not one more conference at a nice hotel. Also, you need to go to Africa, people-to-people style, you need to do a work study-abroad in Africa, in Rwanda, in a country there, or take a spring break trip. Instead of going south, go really south. Go and visit. Go with a group that drills water wells. Go with a group that goes and helps distribute malaria medicines. You will be changed forever. You need to do it."
Brutally Honest has the goods. And what were these terrible sanctions that called Russia, China and Qatar to the aid of Sudan's genocidal government?
"The two powers, joined by Qatar, used their position on a UN sanctions committee to block the imposition of a UN travel ban and asset freeze on four unnamed Sudanese, including one government official, proposed by Britain."
THIS, folks, is the United Nations at work. So sorry if you're one one of the millions killed or ensalved over the years by Sudan's Arab government - because "The Global Test" thinks capital punishment is just fine for BWB (Breathing While Black). At least, it's fine as long as it's carried out by approved regimes with a UN License to Kill® - which is to say, any Arab or Muslim nation, or anyone with the approved backing of Russia or China.
Yeah, these are the people the US should seek approval from for all war and peace decisions in its foreign policy.
Small Town Veteran notes that Britain is moving toward a more confrontational approach with Iran. Captain's Quarters notes that Russia and China are bought off by Iran and remain so - and thus, the UN avenue Britain is attempting to preserve is also bought and paid for.
"We have reached the point where the Western nations looking to defend themselves from Islamofascist threats need to band together instead of working through a dead process at Turtle Bay. The UN does not preserve peace; it preserves the status quo, and unfortunately that allows rogue nations like Iran the breathing room they need to make those developing threats a reality. We need to recognize that and act on it. The US and the UK are not required to commit suicide in the cause of upholding the credibility of international organizations that have already demonstrated themselves as hopelessly corrupt and demonstrably inert."
The Sudan Freedom Walk, covering 300 miles to call attention to the ongoing genocide and slavery of black African Sudanese, began with a rally near the UN in New York on Wednesday. About 75 people attended the event, which starts in New York and concludes on April 5 in Washington, D.C. at the Capitol Building. More information about the walk, which will stop in 19 cities, can be found at www.sudanfreedomwalk.org. (Also here.)
In the interviews which follow, you will hear many unkind words about the UN, Arabs, and Islam. By people who have good cause. This was also clear at a rally in front of the UN in September 2004 (when Gloria Steinem put her foot in her mouth), and at a rally in December 2004.
Pamela also points out some ironic hyperbole from leftist antiwar group United for Peace and Justice, over a definition of "slavery."
Did Scrappleface write a parody of tinpot dictators bitching about how the "neo-colonial" United States controls the internet in order to promote "disorderly freedom of expression"?
You wish it was a parody.
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Anne Bayefsky is a serious human rights lawyer, a career which has led her to becoming an ongoing critic of the UN. She has doggedly exposed the rampant antisemitism of the UN-sponsored Durban conference, which took place just 10 days before 9-11, as well as ongoing institutionalized antisemitism at the UN.
Recently she expanded her watchdog activities from her own site to Eye on the UN, which hosts other pundits dear to the pro-democracy blogosphere.
Eye on the UN recently posted a video and stills from the Durban conference, which ironically was billed as an anti-racism conference. As usual, the Exception Clause applied. With a vengeance. Look at the propaganda from the conference, and wonder just what the word "racism" means these days. (I know, it's a rhetorical question.)
Charles Johnson noted that while IAEA and Mohamed ElBaradei received the Nobel Peace Prize for working against nuclear proliferation, Britain's MI5 has uncovered 360 clandestine nuclear arms organizations -- MI5 Unmasks Covert Arms Programmes:
More than 360 private companies, university departments and government organisations in eight countries, including the Pakistan high commission in London, are identified as having procured goods or technology for use in weapons programmes.
The length of the list, compiled by MI5, suggests that the arms trade supermarket is bigger than has so far been publicly realised. MI5 warns against exports to organisations in Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel, Syria and Egypt and to beware of front companies in the United Arab Emirates, which appears to be a hub for the trade.
Mr. Johnson continued with a London Times piece that highlights the IAEA's failure to abate the proliferation of nuclear weapons materials:
As many of you know, I'm from Canada. We have a pretty different attitude to guns up here, and I must say that American gun culture has always kind of puzzled me. To me, one no more had a right to a gun than one did to a car.
Well, my mind has changed. Changed to the point where I see gun ownership as being a slightly qualified but universal global human right. A month ago in Yalta, Freedom & The Future, I wrote:
"Frankly, if "stopping... societies from becoming the homicidal hells Mr. Bush described in his Latvia speech" is our goal, I'm becoming more sympathetic to the Right to Bear Arms as a universal human right on par with freedom of speech and religion. U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice's personal experience as a child in Birmingham [Alabama] adds an interesting dimension; I hope she talks about this abroad."
This week, I took the last step. You can thank Robert Mugabe, too, because it was his campaign to starve his political/tribal opponents and Pol-Pot style "ruralization" effort (200,000 left homeless recently in a population of 12.6 million) that finally convinced me. Here's the crux, the argument before which all other arguments pale into insignificance:
The Right to Bear Arms is the only reliable way to prevent genocide in the modern world.
And Zimbabwe is the poster child for that proposition. So let's start with what's going on:
Transatlantic Intelligencer take a close look at the U.N.'s V-E day statement, and notes its odious combination of retroactive appeasement, whitewashing, and moral equivalence.
I'd like to add a note to the effect that the U.N. once again demonstrates its own equivalence to the League of Nations, but I can't. It's worse.
Developments continue up here in Canada re: the $100 million AdScam fraud perpetrated by the Liberal Party. Prime Minister Martin has followed the script laid out here on Winds of Change.NET to the letter, beginning with a 'stick to the plan approach' before caving and borrowing a leaf from his worst enemy's playbook. Meanwhile, new witnesses are taking the stand under publication bans. Sitting in Minnesota, Captain Ed promises to publish any material that's given to him.
Elsewhere, blogger and mystery writer Roger L. Simon cotinues to dig into the real mystery of UNSCAM, currently facing resignations from senior investigators who believe the report soft-pedaled the truth and failled to pursue obvious leads, major divisions in the senior panel, and 5 ongoing investigations outside the U.N. The Volcker "Investigation," answering to Kofi Annan himself and headed by someone who spent spent several years as a director of the United Nations Association (UNA-USA) and the Business Council for the United Nations, is becoming a disaster all its own.
Attention is also turning toward possible links to... Canada.
